Commons-l December 2015

commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org

16 participants
13 discussions

Video skills and equipment
by Lars Aronsson 16 Apr '25

16 Apr '25

I just tried to watch some presentation videos from Wikimania. Some had very weak sound, some had no sound in the first minutes, some only played the first minute and then stopped. I don't think the Wikimania videos are unique in having such problems. Video is new to Commons, and the expert contributors are more familiar with still images. How can we learn to make better videos? Are there some good instructions? Perhaps a free instruction video (Wikibooks, but a video instead of a book) on how to produce good videos is what we need. In fact, the English Wikibooks has a title on "Video Production", http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Video_Production but it doesn't have a clear focus (pun not intended). It starts out with discussing satellite TV and has long sections on file formats in different operating systems. There is a help page on Commons for converting video to the Ogg Theora format, but that is only the last step in a long chain. Given that video is new, how can we find and rate videos, nominate "good/featured videos", and give advice on how to improve quality? Is the Commons village pump enough for this? Commons has a separate graphics village pump. Do we also need a separate video village pump? Current digital video cameras use hard disks or memory cards, instead of tape cassettes. Many new models cost less than 300 euro (or dollars), some as little as 120 euro (memory card perhaps not included). Some have a special "Youtube mode", and I guess that kind of usage is what drives the price down. What models are good, and what should one watch out for? We can find free still photos on Flickr and copy them to Commons. Is there somewhere we can find free videos and copy them? Yes, at the Internet Archive. Somewhere else? -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

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Wiki Loves Monuments 2016 calendar
by Ricordisamoa 15 Jan '16

15 Jan '16

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Image editor prototype
by Mark Holmquist 04 Jan '16

04 Jan '16

Hi, all! I'm writing to share a prototype image editor that our very own Prateek (prtksxna) has been working on. We're hoping to write an extension around this and provide it on-wiki as a replacement for several bots and off-wiki tools. It's only an experiment, but honestly, our upload pipeline lacks an editing tool, which is *so* 2003. I'm looking towards getting this released on Commons, as a BetaFeature™, within the next few months. Feedback can be shared at the extension talk page: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:ImageTweaks/UI or on #wikimedia-multimedia or Freenode, or via private e-mail to myself or Prateek, if you prefer. The code is here: https://github.com/prtksxna/ImageEditor You can try a demo here: http://prtksxna.github.io/ImageEditor/ And finally, there's a sneak peek at the API documentation here: http://prtksxna.github.io/ImageEditor/docs/index.html Thanks for your eyeballs and time! -- Mark Holmquist Lead Engineer, Multimedia Wikimedia Foundation mtraceur(a)member.fsf.org http://marktraceur.info

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Help create a local Wikipedia 15 mark!
by Gregory Varnum 27 Dec '15

27 Dec '15

The 15th birthday of Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia movement, is less than one month away! The world will celebrate with us on January 15, 2016, and we need your help making local Wikipedia 15 logos available for more cultures, regions, and languages. You see, instead of one single Wikipedia 15 birthday mark, we've worked with Wikimedians around the world to create dozens. From the International Space Stations to Fondue (thanks Switzerland!), these simple line drawings show the HUGE range of subjects you can learn about on Wikipedia. If you are interested in helping with localised logo creation, you can find more information on Meta-Wiki: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Translation#marks Thank you in advance for your help! -The Wikimedia Foundation Communications team PS. We apologize for sending this only in English. Please help translate to your language: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/MassMessages/Help_with_logo_lo…

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Defence of the personality rights of Daniele Ganser
by Paul Müller 23 Dec '15

23 Dec '15

Hello Friends, hello mrs. tretikov, unfortunately, I was reported the causa of DANIELE GANSER vs. Wikipedia German. So, I feel obliged to inform you about the strange behavior of special admins `Phi and copilot`in the german wikipedia. For ensurance the reputation of wikipedia, it will be necessary to defend the personality rights of Daniele Ganser. Please check the problem and clear the keeping of the internal rules of wikipedia. For further information, please see this video: Die dunkle Seite der Wikipedia, Ein Film von Markus Fiedler und Frank-Michael Spee (The dark Site of Wikipedia) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHfiCX_YdgA by the now 300.000 clicks! I will trust in Your Seriosity and will look forward to your answer. Yours Sincerely Paul Müller

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Re: [Commons-l] [Wikidata] Seasons Greetings and a call to action
by Jane Darnell 23 Dec '15

23 Dec '15

Yes I agree with what Stas says, which is why I posted my invitation. Also, we have many more items without images on Wikidata than Wikipedia articles with images, so we also need illustrations for things that don't have a page on Wikipedia yet such as everyday items (cookie types), minor paintings, minor monuments, or minor politicians, etc. As far as fair-use images go you can't link to them with the P18 (image) property because that only points to Commons. I have in the past linked to a Matisse painting on the English Wikipedia with P973 (described at url) link. For people who are interested in linking WLM or other monument images, they may want to start with the handy nearby feature in Wikidata (left side of the screen). On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 10:45 PM, Stas Malyshev <smalyshev(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hi! > > > For example, this > > article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Frost_House has a nice > > public domain photo that someone contributed back in 2010, but it's not > > referenced from Wikidata https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7964895 > > > > Why couldn't these all be referenced automatically? > > Many articles contain multiple images, which may or may not be the one > we want to see as "main image" for the item. E.g. this article: > https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Schellino has a number > of images, but none of them are suitable to be "image" for > https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3766751. So some human involvement is > necessary. > > And, of course, there are copyright questions. Wikidata technically does > not contain the images, only links to them, so it may or may not be > important, but those links should be to Commons, and not every image in > Wikipedia articles are from commons, some are local on wikis and can not > be imported to Commons for various reasons. > > -- > Stas Malyshev > smalyshev(a)wikimedia.org > > _______________________________________________ > Wikidata mailing list > Wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata >

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Potential Christmas gift for a Commons contributor who uses Pentax
by Pine W 22 Dec '15

22 Dec '15

Hi Commoners, I have an excess "Tamron AF 28-75mm f/2.8 SP XR Di LD Aspherical (IF)" lens for Pentax. If you are a regular contributor to Wikimedia Commons, I might be willing to give this to you as your Christmas / New Year's present. Please email me off-list if you would like the lens, with: 1. Evidence that you already use a Pentax camera to contribute to Commons, 2. Evidence that you have a history of providing good-quality images, and 3. An explanation of how your contributions to Commons would improve if you receive this lens Merry Christmas, Pine

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Clarify Project Scope about hosting illegal materials
by Tuszynski, Jarek W. 22 Dec '15

22 Dec '15

I proposed to clarify Project scope to explicitly state the mostly obvious fact that all uploads need to comply with the US law. Please consider: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Clarify_P… Jarek T. (user:Jarekt)

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Seasons Greetings and a call to action
by Jane Darnell 22 Dec '15

22 Dec '15

Hi all, I cordially invite you to donate some time and add an image from Wikimedia Commons to Wikidata this year. For inspiration you may choose one of the recent Wiki Loves Monuments prize winning photos from your local competition being added to the Wikidata item about that monument, one of your favorite paintings from your local museum being added to the Wikidata item about that painting, an image of christmas cookies that you made that you could add to an item about that type of cookie, or anything else that has an item but no image yet. To help you overcome the difficulties with editing on Wikidata, here is a short film by User:Jan_Ainali_(WMSE) on how to add an image to an item: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_image_to_Wikidata.webm Thanks, good luck and let's hope we see some structured data for Commons in 2016, Jane https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2015_winners https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Museums https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Christmas_cookies https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Commons

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Assistance needed
by Felix Nartey 15 Dec '15

15 Dec '15

Hi all, Sorry if this is not the right forum to ask this, but I wish to seek assistance on my thoughts below and i will be very grateful if i am directed to the right forum if this is not. Just to create certain on this matter before i proceed to uploading contents. I have quite a number of pictures about the history of my country (Ghana) which were taken over 50 years ago. Now i am looking forward to uploading these contents but have encountered the following obstacles: 1. The real copyright holder of some of the pictures is dead and i have been thinking of how to go about this. How do we upload such content on who do we say is the copyrightholder, because once i upload contents of someone else i must prove the release of copyright by the owner and under which license the owner wants it shared. 2.The real copyright holder is very old and ill and not even in the country. We have spoken to a close contact who has confirmed use but we are still working on a Skype chat or hangout to discuss the release of rights with the hope that the recorded video chat could be a source of proof. Kindly advice what to do. Best regards, -- *Felix Nartey | DSE CAL Bank Ltd. | Co-manager GBG TEMA <https://plus.google.com/u/0/106882654487622047846/posts> **| Community Manager WMGH <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Ghana> | About me <http://about.me/felix.nartey> | +233 242 844987 **| **Check out!! <http://goo.gl/4oHJeQ>*

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Commons-l December 2015